He now demanded a pipe of tobacco, and for a time smoked in silence. I could see that his mind worked painfully.
“Stiffish lot, those Americans,” he said at last.
“They do so many things one doesn’t do,” I answered.
“And their brogue is not what one could call top-hole, is it now? How often they say ‘I guess!’ I fancy they must say it a score of times in a half-hour.”
“I fancy they do, sir,” I agreed.
“I fancy that Johnny with the eyebrows will say it even oftener.”
“I fancy so, sir. I fancy I’ve counted it well up to that.”
“I fancy you’re quite right. And the chap ‘guesses’ when he awfully well knows, too. That’s the essential rabbit. To-night he said ‘I guess I’ve got you beaten to a pulp,’ when I fancy he wasn’t guessing at all. I mean to say, I swear he knew it perfectly.”
“You lost the game of drawing poker?” I asked coldly, though I knew he had carried little to lose.
“I lost——” he began. I observed he was strangely embarrassed. He strangled over his pipe and began anew: “I said that to play the game soundly you’ve only to know when to bluff. Studied it out myself, and jolly well right I was, too, as far as I went. But there’s further to go in the silly game. I hadn’t observed that to play it greatly one must also know when one’s opponent is bluffing.”